Jeremiah 2:5

5 Thus says Yahweh: "What injustice did your ancestors find in me that they were far from me, and they went after the vanity, and they became vain?

Jeremiah 2:5 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 2:5

Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in
me
What injustice or injury has been done them? there is no unrighteousness in God, nor can any be done by him; or what unfaithfulness, or want of truth and integrity in performing promises, had they found in him? he never suffers his faithfulness to fail, or any of the good things he has promised. So the Targum,

``what falsehood have your fathers found in my word?''

none at all; God is a covenant keeping God: that they are gone far from me;
from my fear, as the Chaldee paraphrase; from the word and worship, and ways of God: and have walked after vanity;
after idols, the vanities of the Gentiles, ( Jeremiah 14:22 ) : and are become vain?
in their imaginations and in their actions, in their knowledge and in their practice, worshipping idols, as well as guilty of many other sins.

Jeremiah 2:5 In-Context

3 Israel [was] holy to Yahweh, the first fruit of his produce. All [those who] ate it were held guilty; disaster came to them," {declares} Yahweh.'"

4 Hear the word of Yahweh, [O] house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel.

5 Thus says Yahweh: "What injustice did your ancestors find in me that they were far from me, and they went after the vanity, and they became vain?

6 And they did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh, the one who brought us up from the land of Egypt, the one who led us in the desert, in a land of desert plains and gorges, in a land of dryness and deep darkness, in a land {that no one passes through}, and no human lives there?'

7 And I brought you to the land of the orchard, to eat its fruit, and its good things. But you entered and defiled my land, and my inheritance you made a detestable thing.